Impact of Moringa oleifera Leaf Meal on Egg Quality Traits in Japanese quail
Aayush Yadav *
Department of Livestock Production and Management, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Dau Shri Vasudev Chandrakar Kamdhenu Vishwavidyalaya, Durg - 491001, Chhattisgarh, India.
Ajit Kumar Santra
Department of Livestock Production and Management, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Dau Shri Vasudev Chandrakar Kamdhenu Vishwavidyalaya, Durg - 491001, Chhattisgarh, India.
Asit Jain
Department of Animal Genetics and Breeding, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Nanaji Deshmukh Veterinary Science University, Jabalpur - 482001, Madhya Pradesh, India.
Nishma Singh
Department of Livestock Production and Management, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Dau Shri Vasudev Chandrakar Kamdhenu Vishwavidyalaya, Durg - 491001, Chhattisgarh, India.
Rupal Pathak
Department of Instructional Livestock Farm Complex, College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, Dau Shri Vasudev Chandrakar Kamdhenu Vishwavidyalaya, Durg - 491001, Chhattisgarh, India.
Ashutosh Dubey
Department of Livestock Production and Management, College of Agriculture, Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Raipur - 492012, Chhattisgarh, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
To evaluate the effect of diet supplementation with Moringa oleifera leaf meal (MOLM) on egg quality traits of Japanese quails, a study was conducted for 16 weeks. For this purpose, a total of 270 adult female quails and 90 adult male quails of seven weeks of age were divided into 5 groups (M0, M0.5, M1, M1.5, and M2) of 3 replicates of 24 birds (18 females and 6 males) each. The groups corresponded to 0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2% inclusion levels of MOLM. The egg quality traits were studied fortnightly in four randomly collected eggs per replicate. An improvement (P≤0.05) in the egg quality traits, particularly egg shape index, albumen index, yolk colour score, and Haugh unit was recorded in the quails fed MOLM-based diets which denote better egg quality and higher chances of acceptability of the eggs by the consumer. It is concluded that MOLM can be safely included at 2% in the diets of Japanese quails.
Keywords: Acceptability, consumer, egg quality traits, Japanese quails, leaf meal, Moringa oleifera